A Better Way to Install Non-Slip Epoxy Flooring

There's always more than one way to do something. But . . . there may be only one way to do it best.

Take loading a dishwasher. Yeah, you can turn all the spoons the same way, but invariably when the dishwasher starts, some of those spoons are going to lock together and not get cleaned.

Epoxy and aggregate mixture that failed to bond to the concrete floor

A better way, at least in my opinion, is to turn some spoons up and some spoons down. That way they can't lock together and not clean.

Now take an epoxy floor coating with an aggregate added to make it a "non-slip" floor. Some installers add the aggregate to the liquid epoxy coating mix, stir it up until it's blended well, and then spread it onto the prepared concrete floor.

Others will spread the epoxy coating onto the prepared floor and then "broadcast to rejection" the aggregate onto the wet epoxy. The idea here is to broadcast the aggregate to the point that the epoxy can't hold anymore, hence the rejection part, and then add a topcoat to seal the floor.

Removal of the failed coating was
a fairly simple process. It peeled right up.

Which is best? I suppose there are arguments for both methods but we choose the "broadcast to rejection" method. Why? For the reason that the first epoxy coating layer is bonded to the concrete itself.

The mixture of epoxy and aggregate method has less surface contact with the concrete and can fail to bond. It bonds together well, but to itself and not to the floor. It can be a much cheaper floor to install, but if it looses its bond to the concrete, then it becomes an expensive floor to tear out and install all over again.